It started with a glance over candlelight.
Emma leaned into Ryan’s shoulder as laughter rippled through the dinner table. They were surrounded by warm voices, clinking glasses, the scent of lavender and sea salt drifting in through the open terrace doors. The villa was secluded, beautiful—borrowed for the weekend by friends of friends who preferred not to explain too much.
Across the table, Elise met Emma’s eyes and smiled—slow, knowing. Her hand rested lightly on her partner Noah’s thigh, and he said nothing. He didn’t have to.
Later, when the music had softened and shoes had been quietly kicked aside, Emma found herself on a couch near the fire, a glass of wine forgotten in her hand. Elise sat beside her, legs drawn up, the air between them warmer than the flames.
“We don’t rush anything,” Elise said, her voice like dusk. “It’s all about trust. Curiosity.”
Ryan, across the room, was in quiet conversation with Noah. Emma caught the glance he gave her—checking in, always reading her first. She nodded once. That was all he needed.
Touches came gently, deliberately. A brush of fingers, the slight tilt of a head, the silence that fills the space between breath and permission.
No one asked. No one needed to.
And in the quiet that followed—long after the laughter had faded and the candle wax had spilled—Emma lay tangled with Ryan, her body humming, her mind clearer than it had been in years.
They didn’t speak about what it meant. They didn’t have to.
